CHAPTER X A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT
January closed with its immemorial thaw and February drew near in a mistof speculation as to whether it would come in like a lion or a lamb. Butwhatever may have been the state of the weather outside when the newmonth arrived, the Winnebago barometer registered a tempest in a teapot.It was Katherine who was responsible for that particular barometricactivity. That is, it was she who attached the fuse to the bomb and setthe match to it. All the bomb did was blow up.
The Winnebagos were all over at Katherine's one Friday afternoon afterschool, painting a buffalo robe that was to hang on the wall in the OpenDoor Lodge and cover an unsightly board. Veronica was in one of her rarecheerful moods and played gay tunes on her violin while the other girlsworked. She was gradually thawing toward the girls, although she wasstill very conservative in her friendships. She was most friendly towardGladys and Hinpoha, the two girls who came from the best family. She wasnot particularly drawn to merry, tomboyish Sahwah, because she was notmusical, although they got along. Thus also it was with Medmangi andNakwisi. But from the first Katherine Adams had seemed to rub her thewrong way. Big, clumsy, awkward Katherine, uncultured and hopelesslyplebeian! She always managed to step on Veronica's dainty shoes or sit onher cherished violin or spill cocoa on her dress. And her flyawayappearance constantly jarred on Veronica's artistic nature. And thatridiculous, unmusical voice!
Looking only at these defects, Veronica failed to appreciate thewonderful magnetism of Katherine's personality and the unfailing goodnature which made her a boon companion any hour out of the twenty-fourwhatever the weather might be. Not being American-born, Veronica believedfirmly in class distinctions, and to her Katherine was a peasant and thusan inferior.
However, to the others it seemed that the strangeness between them andVeronica was wearing away, and this afternoon they felt closer to herthan they ever had before. She even asked, actually _asked_, to be shownhow to make "slumgullion"--she who a few months before had scornfullymaintained that cooking was for servants and not for ladies. "She'sgetting there!" whispered Gladys to Hinpoha, with a delighted squeeze.Spirits ran high and before long everybody felt they must dance or burst.
"It's too bad we haven't Nyoda's old banjo over here," said Sahwah. "Thensome of the rest of us could play and Veronica could dance."
"I'll go over and get it," said Katherine obligingly. So she went over toNyoda's house and got the banjo, and it was on this errand that her feetbecame entangled in the fuse that led to the bomb. On the doorstep of thehouse next to Nyoda's, the house where Veronica dwelt, there sat a snowywhite poodle, fresh from a bath and rivalling in purity a field of virginsnow. This was Fifi, Veronica's French poodle, who had come to her as aChristmas gift, and whose pedigree was considerably longer than he was.Fifi did not share his young mistress's ideas as to the unfitness of thepeasantry for association with the high born, and took a decided fancy toKatherine at first sight. Just how much he was influenced by half a sugarcookie, which she held out to him over the fence, it is impossible tosay, but when Katherine turned out of Nyoda's yard and went up thestreet, Fifi was at her heels and refused to be shooed home.
"Well, come along, then, if you want to," she said good-naturedly. "Isuppose you're lonesome with all your folks gone and want some improvin'company, like us. A great hostess I'd be, if I turned down a dog thatwanted to come to my At Home Day."
The January thaw was still in progress, although it was the first ofFebruary, and the streets were lakes of slush and mud. Katherine did notmind mud in the least and stepped cheerfully into the puddles. Fifi didlikewise. By the time they arrived at the house the comparison of thefield of virgin snow no longer held good. Even Katherine hesitated aboutadmitting him.
Veronica shrieked when she saw him and did not share his delight at theunexpected meeting. "Oh-oh-oh!" she exclaimed in dismay. "He is to go tothe Dog Show tonight. Katie spent all morning washing and combing him.How did he ever get out? She must have left the door open. And then youhad to coax him over here, and now look at him!" After a hasty glance therest decided they would rather not look at him.
"Well," said Katherine, much taken aback, but still mistress of thesituation, "I'll just give him a nice bath and carry him home andeverything will be all right. Go on dancing, girls, there's the banjo;Fifi and I will entertain ourselves in the basement."
She set the squirming lump of mud into one of the wash tubs and let warmwater run over him from a faucet for a few minutes to remove the clods.Then she set to work in earnest. She hesitated for some time about whatkind of soap to use and finally decided that dog's hair was the same ascamel's hair; camel's hair was wool; and therefore, according to the mostfamiliar problem in the whole geometry, Fifi was all wool and needed WoolSoap. Now the mud through which Fifi and Katherine had come was theyellow clayey kind that sticketh closer than a brother, and Wool Soap wasnot designed especially to dissolve it. After three scrubbings andrinsings Fifi was still a muddy, yellowish gray, and there was no hopethat he would dry into a field of virgin white as a yellow popcorn kernelbursts into snowy blossom.
Katherine was discouraged. Then she suddenly remembered something."Clothes always come out yellow if you wash them in just soap," she saidtriumphantly to herself. "It's the bluing that makes them white. Fifineeds bluing!"
But a thorough search of the laundry room failed to reveal any bluing."Shucks!" exclaimed Katherine in vexation. "We're out of it. I heard AuntAnna mention it this morning. And the stores are closed this afternoon.What will I do? I don't dare produce Fifi unless he's all white andnice." Then it was that Katherine's mighty genius set to work. A lessresourceful person would have been at a standstill when confronted withsuch a difficulty; a genius makes a way when there is none. In onerespect Katherine was an equal of the gods--what she wished and did nothave she created. She wished bluing; she must have it; so she calmly setabout making it. Katherine took chemistry and knew that iodine, appliedto starch, will turn it blue. There was iodine in the house and there wasstarch. The pucker vanished from her brow. A far-sighted person wouldhave foreseen other results from the mixture beside the chemical actionof the iodine on the starch. But Katherine was not a far-sighted person.She was a genius. It is said that geniuses, entirely absorbed in oneidea, often forget the most commonplace fact altogether. Thus it was thatKatherine, filled with the idea that starch turns blue when mixed withiodine, forgot the original purpose for which starch was invented. AndKatherine had used flat-iron starch, the kind that gets stiff withoutboiling. It turned blue--a beautiful bright purple blue--and she immersedFifi again and again. Katherine had to admit that he looked dreadfullyblue when he emerged from the final dip, but serene in the belief that hewould dry pure white like the clothes did, she rolled him up in a pieceof carpet and set him in a wash basket beside the furnace to dry. Thenshe went upstairs and joined the dancers, announcing with a sigh ofrelief that Fifi was clean once more and could come up as soon as he wasdry.
Having been told that Fifi was clean, they naturally looked for a whitedog, and it was not their fault that they did not recognize the creaturethat slunk into their midst in the middle of the revels. As an Animalfrom Nowhere he would have taken the prize over the head of the famousSalmonkey. His hair was pasted flat to his sides in long, stringy waves,giving him a queer, corrugated effect. His head was a dirty, yellowishwhite, for, in keeping his eyes out of the blue bath, Katherine had heldhis whole head out; and the rest of him was a bright purplish blue. Withhis excited red tongue hanging out in front he looked like a dilapidatedremnant of the American flag. The girls shrieked and fled before him.Katherine sank weakly down on the couch and viewed him in consternation.
"Whatever did you do to him?" wailed Veronica, when informed that thiswas actually Fifi and not some freak animal from the Zoo.
"I wanted to blue him to make him nice and silvery white," explainedKatherine ruefully, "and there wasn't any bluing, so I made some withiodine and starch. I
thought he would come out all nice and fluffy, butinstead of that he got--all--stiff!"
The Winnebagos burst out into a wild peal of laughter that made thewindows rattle. They were simply helpless, and laughed until they sanklimply on each other's shoulders. The simplicity of Katherine'sinspirations was nothing short of sublime.
Gaining a measure of control over themselves, they became aware thatVeronica was standing before them with eyes flashing lightning, in such apassion as they had never seen any girl display. Holding her translatedpet in her arms, she stamped her foot and almost hissed at Katherine:"Don't you ever come near me again, you--you great big kangaroo from outof the west!
"And the rest of you are just as bad," she cried, blazing at themcollectively. "You think it's funny. I wish I had never met you, and fromthis day I am no more a Camp Fire Girl! I am through with you!" Andbefore they could collect their wits to reply she had rushed out of thehouse like a whirlwind.
Completely sobered by the result of her act, Katherine called herself onename after another and proposed the most extravagant things in the natureof penance. She and Nyoda talked it over a long time, and Nyoda made hersee how a habit of doing things without thinking of the consequences ledto more trouble than deliberately planned evil did, and she promisedfaithfully that this was the last rash act she would ever perform.
"Now that Veronica has had time to think it over and see the funny side,and realize that Fifi is not hurt, I think you may go over and presentyour sincere apologies and make your peace with Veronica," said Nyoda.And Katherine, humble as the dust, set forth.
But Veronica would have none of her peace offerings. She received herapology coldly, and declared she would never come back into the ranks ofthe Winnebagos. Then did Katherine go to Nyoda and offer to resign fromthe group if that would bring Veronica back. "She has a better right tobe in it than I," she said. "She was in it first."
But Nyoda would not consent to that at all. "The whole thing isn't worthsuch heroic measures," she declared. "I'll talk to Veronica myself."
And she did, with no better results than Katherine. Veronica would not beappeased, even now that Fifi was white once more, and had suffered noevil effects from his bluing. Veronica declared that Katherine was lowclass, and not fit for her to associate with. And she wouldn't forgivethe others for laughing. So Nyoda had to go back and report her failureto the other girls. And sadly they realized that their hope of makingVeronica into a Winnebago had evaporated.